Monday, December 06, 2010

Slate on Tummy Time

The folks at Slate wrote an article on why babies need more tummy time. In short, they're missing milestones because they are placed on their backs to sleep and mothers don't put them on their tummies at all.There are plenty of comments about evolution, chemicals in bedding made in china, how nature made us co-sleepers so we wouldn't facilitate dingoes eating babies, "This article is spot on!", "This article is crap!", "Doctors are idiots!", "Mothers are idiots!" Pretty much exactly what you would expect. I'm still waiting for someone to say what I always say... Why don't you take him out of the automatic baby swing with the spinning toys hanging eight inches in front of his face, put him on the floor, back or tummy, whichever makes him happier (I have a guess!) for a few minutes at a time, and see if he doesn't start trying to check off the boxes on your milestone chart?

3 comments:

We subjected our daughter to "tummy time" only a small handful of times, each for only a few seconds, before my mama instincts couldn't let me continue doing something to her she hated so much. Shortly afterward I encountered an article (perhaps on your blog? can't remember.) written by a doctor, about how tummy time was bad for babies' necks. That was all the confirmation I needed to stop listening to all the advice about tummy time - and all things else that offended my better judgment.

My daughter, unaided by tummy time (and who spent all of her waking hours either slung on me, or laying on the open floor), rolled over in both directions in her 4th month....and has met all of her milestones all on her own (without intervention or effort on my part). She is now a delightful healthy 19 month old.

"Woe to us when we believe ourselves responsible for matters that do not concern us, and delude ourselves with the idea that we are perfecting things that will perfect themselves independently of us! For then we are like lunatics; and the profound question arises: What then is our true mission, our true responsibility?" - Dr. Maria Montessori, Spontaneous Activity in Education

"Tummy Time" also doesn't have to mean laying baby on the floor on their belly-- you can lay them on your belly, or play the "airplane" game up on your legs (my son liked that one!), not to mention carrying baby some in slings or wraps instead of a car-seat or stroller all the time, so they spend more time upright and holding up their heads.

I agree with Marcy - car seats are the worst! They have been proven unsafe for more than an hour so in the car at a time and yet people carry their kids around in them and even have their babies sleep in them! My baby does do tummy time but he only tolerates it now that he has lots of neck strength from those other things Marcy mentioned. Plus from sleeping with me and having to roll over to get at my boob during the night. ;)